That's what Groucho Marx said in "A Day At The Races", and I wonder if John Barrymore's Svengali was one of his inspirations for that line. Seriously, with that thing, it took me about half an hour to realize that this wasn't intended as a comedy. There is one traveling shot, where the camera circles around Svengali and then flies outside his house and into the house of Trilby, which is genuinely impressive, and the "hypnotizing eyes" effects are successful, but the story is slow-as-molasses, and Barrymore's performance doesn't date well; it constantly calls attention to itself, as if it's the performance that matters and not the film that it serves. ** out of 4.

SVENGALI (Warner Brothers, 1931), directed by Archie Mayo, stars the great profile, John Barrymore, in one of his most celebrated movie roles of his career as well as one of his finest for the Warner studio. Based on the classic 1894 novel "Trilby" by George DeMaurier, which had been filmed twice before under its original book title during the silent film era (1915 and 1923), this latest edition, the first with sound and retitled SVENGALI, certainly fits with the Barrymore style through voice and dark pointed beard image, almost similar to the Fagin character from Charles Dickiens "Oliver Twist." Marian Marsh, a newcomer to films with some previous extra roles to her credit, assumes the role of Trilby.The screenplay by J. Grubb Alexander, set in 19th century Paris, introduces Svengali (John Barrymore) as a composer and music teacher living in an apartment which he shares with Becko (Luis Alberni), and not only owes some back room rent, but owes everybody in town. After Ronori (Carmel Myers), one of his pupils, leaves her husband for Svengali, who rejects her for not getting a cash settlement from her spouse, Svengali encounters a doll-faced beauty named Trilby O'Ferrall (Marian Marsh), a model in the studio of fellow artists Monierd (Donald Crisp), DeTefi (Lumsden Hare) and Billie (Bramwell Fletcher). Because Trilby shows more attention towards the younger artist, Billie, Svengali, who wants her all to himself, hypnotizes her affection over to him. Later, Svengali takes Trilby with him to Paris where, under his trance, develops "his manufactured love" into a famous concert opera singer. Left to believe Trilby had taken her own life following his disapproval of her posing in the nude, Billie, discovering Madame Svengali to be his one and only Trilby, follows their concert tours, hoping to somehow set her free of her maestro's hypnotic eyes.Often classified as a Gothic horror film with similarities between this and Bram Stoker's "Dracula," with female victim living under a trance from her evil mentor, SVENGALI is very much a love story of rejection told through the crazed hypnotist's point of view. Released the same year as Universal's own "Dracula" (1931) with Bela Lugosi in the title role, it's a wonder how SVENGALI might have turned out had Lugosi assumed the task instead of Barrymore. Definitely Lugosi's Hungarian accent would have been natural enough for good measure, but through Lugosi's acting style, his Svengali might have leaned heavily towards Dracula, thus, stirring some confusion for its viewers as to which role he's playing. Yet even by not doing Svengali in the Dracula mode, his Dracula has permanently cemented Lugosi's screen image as Svengali has for Barrymore.For Barrymore's interpretation, his Svengali is a German Jew, ja (though classified by uncertain terms as being of Polish decent by the Billie character), who often addresses his protégé Trilby as "mein leibchen" (German for "my dear"). For a little dose of humor, Svengali must leave a foul odor about town, considering his reputation for not bathing. When asked when he last took a bath, Svengali's reply: "Not since I tripped and fell into the sewer," thus, having his fellow artists stripping and placing Svengali into the tub covered in soap suds. As for Marian Marsh, such a role should have turned her into a major star attraction for the Warners studio. Although she did get plenty of exposure and movie parts during her two years at the studio, she soon drifted to obscurity after leaving Warners by 1932. SVENGALI, along with her Marlene Dietrich style-like interpretation in Columbia's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (1935), and her featured role opposite Boris Karloff in THE BLACK ROOM (1935), are certainly the only other two films of distinguishable effort by Marsh before her movie retirement by 1941. Paul Porcasi (Senor Banelli); Adrienne D'Ambricourt (Madame Vinard) and Ferike Boros (Marta) are other members in the supporting cast seen in smaller parts.Aside from Barrymore's bravura performance, highlights include the close-up caption of Svengali's hypnotic glass-marble eyes, along with camera tracking around the buildings as Svengali hypnotizes Trilby at a distance from his quarters to hers to the sound of passing winds. The pacing is good as is its direction, special effects and occasional underscoring helps with the proceedings during its 81 minutes.The success of SVENGALI lead to Warners to re-teaming its major cast members of Barrymore, Marsh, ALberni and Carmel Myers in THE MAD GENIUS (1931), but it's SVENGALI that has had more exposure in latter years on commercial television in the sixties and seventies, followed by further exposure in the eighties on numerous cable and public television stations, such as the 1989 presentation on The Learning Channel where its opening seven minutes with Barrymore and Myers was cut for time restrains involving movie discussion in its 90 minute time slot. Becoming a public domain title, SVENGALI became available onto video and DVD formats from various distributors.Even with newer SVENGALI editions as the 1955 British adaptation and 1983 made to television presentation, it's the 1931 oldie with John Barrymore and the blondish Marian Marsh film buffs seem to remember most. Watch for it the next time it appears on Turner Classic Movies. (***)

Svengali (1931)"Svengali" is a strange strange film, half nightmare, half plain old German Expressionism thrown into an inventive Warner Bros. set. It's amazing at its best, and the set design and photography both got Oscar nominations. The plot that gets built up of increasingly new elements, comic outsiders (Englishmen who believe in bathing every day) and a overtly beautiful blonde model and her apparent love match (they have just met), until the crux of it clarifies--the title character is a madman who can hypnotize people at will.John Barrymore in his archly long, dramatic is a creep, appropriately. When he hypnotizes, his eyes turn to these large glowing white orbs. He has fallen in love with a model and starts to control her, which her fiancé only gradually realizes. Other people just find Svengali a quirky artistic type, and see no harm in him at first.The setting is odd--clearly shot on a studio lot rather than a real Parisian artists colony, it nonetheless is meant to be some kind of rambling set of rooms that are more or less attached, or near each other. For the whole first half, the main characters never really leave the irregular, sometimes offkilter chambers, which look like there were adapted from "Caligari" itself. The light and the framing, and the interesting very shallow depth of field, combine to make a mysterious and really beautiful effect. The Barrymores, as a group, are amazing, but their theatricality, especially John's, doesn't always transfer well to modern movies. In a way, it's this leading man who cuts into the disarming surrealism and horror overall, simply because he's so campy. This might be just a matter of changing tastes, because his effect reminds me rather a lot of Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" which was released the same year (a few months earlier). The story of Dracula is more archetypal and wonderful for the ages, but in my view (I've seen both movies recently) this is much better filmed. The photography, lighting, and blocking (the way the actors move) are more fluid and involved. Archie Mayo, the director, has a handful of completely wonderful films to his up and down career (click on his name to see). As much as this one has some obvious and forced sections, and a plot that doesn't quite involve the viewer as you would hope, it's a really well made, well constructed movie. For 1931 it's sometimes a pure wonder.

There never was an historical figure named Svengali, nor a hypnotized Trilby on whom he worked his will. The novel was written in the late 1800s. The book was a big smash in those days, when people still read, so the name and the relationship became icons of vernacular culture.Barrymore is Svengali, a pianist and teacher of music, who lives in a decrepit boarding house in Paris with a couple of other half-starved artists. (The novel devoted a lot of time to a description of la vie Boheme on the Left Bank.) A young artist's model, Marian Marsh, falls in love with Billie (Fletcher) but falls under the hypnotic spell of the older Svengali. Well, it's more than hypnosis really. He can enter her head from across the city.Under his spell, Trilby becomes a famous soprano. Svengali fakes her death and whisks her off elsewhere. Svengali marries her. She becomes the toast of Europe with her soprano. The only thing that Svengali can't get past is her love for Billie. He has to hypnotize her to get her to cooperate in the boudoir and by the end, he's disgusted with himself for making love to a marionette. He longs for her love and gets it in the end, though it costs him dearly.There are a couple of good reasons for watching this old flick if the opportunity arises. For one thing, the direction, performances, and sets are pretty good for their time. In particular, a traveling shot across a miniature Paris is right out of German expressionism. And rooms are filled with dark, angular shadows.Then there's the way the story is shot. This was before the imposition of the infamous code, so there are scenes that wouldn't have made it past the censors a few years later. There's a semi-nude scene, for instance, which suggests that Trilby looks good all over.And then there's the dialog. Svengali has been described by his neighbors as "a Polish scavenger." Indeed, he's unkempt and clomps slowly about. I think he once played Rasputin, the Mad Monk. If he didn't, he should have. But, what with his hypnotic eyeballs, he has this power over women. When a rich woman enters his studio for her music lesson at the beginning, he asks, "What did we do last?" The woman replies, "Don't you remember?" And he says, "Ahh, yes, but I meant the music." The wealthy woman then tells him, "I worship you, Svengali. I have left my husband for good." And Svengali squints thoughtfully and says, "Yes, but how much did he leave YOU?" When he discovers that she came to him without a penny, he throws her out and she commits suicide. "Her body was found in the river!" Svengali: "Ah, that is impossible -- in this weather." Later, fighting Trilby's love for Billie, he dismisses Billie as "that stiff-necked Englander, the head of the Purity Brigade." Barrymore plays all this with a comic relish, like Richard III. He revels in his exercise of evil.Marian Marsh, on the other hand, is one of the most beautiful young woman to appear in the screen in the early 30s. She doesn't have Garbo's knowing languour, although she's equally attractive, but rather the winsome eagerness of a child. She's like a porcelain doll with perfect features and a smile that has the same effect on a viewer as Svengali's glowing eyeballs.I wonder how many of today's kids would recognize the name of Svengali. (Never mind Trilby.) He may be disappearing along with much of the rest of our shared data base in vernacular culture. I once asked my college class if they had heard of Sinbad the Sailor. Forget it.